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Anticipating Motion - The Subtle Art of Dance Photography

Posted on 31 JAN 2017 by Isabella Under Guest Blogs Category

The most exhilarating pieces of art are not easy to create and, if you’d like to be one of those artists whose work is breathtaking and makes people stand before it for hours, you need to put in some hard work.

Dance photography is a demanding branch and it can be very challenging to take a great photo because there are so many different factors you need to think about. However, if you do invest some work into learning to photograph dancers, it will pay off because they are living, moving art.

Constant Movement

It’s quite important that you keep your focus during every second of your shooting because– it doesn’t really matter if those gestures are small or emphasized; it’s your job to pay close attention to everything that’s going on and capture the right moments. In order to make things happen, you need to have a fast shutter speed.

Mind the Lights

If you have a gig and you need to photograph dancers on an event of some sorts, you should go prepared because the lighting on these happenings isn’t a good friend of photographers. There will be a lot of red and green and blue in the air and it can be hard for you to take photos that are of good quality, which is why my suggestion is not to take a job like this unless you have an aperture that’s less than f2.8.

Set a Shooting Mode

Your job will be a lot less frustrating if you set the right mode and go from taking regular shots to a continuous shooting mode or burst mode. Naturally, you need to equip yourself with enough storage space so you don’t run out of memory; that’s the last thing you need.

Stability as a Must

It’s enough that dancers are moving so, with you running around as well, it’s really impossible to expect to have good results, which is why you need to increase your stability and have a tripod or a monopod with you. Naturally, you’ll need to do some extra work afterwards in the form of quality photo editing service by SmartPHOTOeditors, but that part will be a lot easier if you take great photos during the actual shooting session.

Experiment with Angles

The best thing you can do if you want to get a job well done is to go prepared, so make sure that you’re familiar with that particular venue you need to work with and find the best angles. Doing this before the actual gig will make you a lot more efficient during the event itself. In this case, my suggestion is to bring a monopod with you so that you can move faster.

This is a base for photographing dancers, but the key to being successful in dance photography is experience. Also, reading up at least for a bit about the types of dance will help you understand and predicts movements, which can only make your work even better.